


Snow

by saltsanford



Series: Starships [2]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Circus, Alternate Universe - Dance, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Character Death, Drunkenness, Gen, Pole Dancing, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Kimbalina
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 17:45:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15200102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltsanford/pseuds/saltsanford
Summary: Tex and Carolina: how to lose your best friend, and how to get her back again. Starships AU.





	Snow

**Author's Note:**

> hello friends!!! as the summary states, this is part of my modern dance AU, [Starships](https://archiveofourown.org/series/842652). i really enjoyed sticking in little background hints of tex and carolina's friendship/partnership in "sky." it felt so good to write them as friends, and i found myself wondering constantly how they got there. they have been trying to wrest the spotlight away for months, so i decided to let them have it and tell their story. i have a good chunk of this fic written, but am mostly fiddling with the organization. concrit is welcome - i haven't written a ton for these two (particularly tex) and am definitely open to hearing suggestions about their voices/whatevs. ALSO - please be sure to check the tags each time this updates, as i'm still hashing out a few details.
> 
> hope you enjoy!

They call them the best.

They call them proteges, stars, inspirations. They tell them that they are talented, skilled beyond measure, filled with promise and youth and hope. They say that the gymnastics world has never seen so much promise in one gym, and that its athletes are surely heading for great things. When it falls apart, they call it a tragedy, a horrific loss, a shocking development. A lesson to be learned.

Then, they call them nothing at all.

But Tex doesn’t remember them as stars or inspirations, or even a lesson to be learned. She remembers them as ten teenagers with states for names, names that they giggled their way through choosing after too much stolen champagne. The champagne had been York’s, she remembered that, nicked from his mother’s fancy wine cellar. They’d pretended it was a joke, that they weren’t _really_ going to go around with these silly nicknames, but they did. They all, privately, thought they were the _height_ of cool, and when the newspapers started referring to them by these names— _Felicia_ _“South” Stravinsky, Basil “Florida” Sunshine_ — they’d groaned and rolled their eyes.

They were ten teenagers with states for names, but they didn’t begin as ten.

They began as two.

They began with the girl next door.

* * *

Later, much later, Church will make a face as they lay together in their bed, examining the new silicone bands that encircle the fourth finger on their left hands: Tex’s, onyx black; Church’s, powder blue. “That’s not right,” he’ll interrupt, “the girl next door was you.”

“Ugh, don’t say it like that,” Tex will say, rolling her eyes. “It sounds sappy when you say it like that. That I’m your _girl next door._ ”

“Well, you were!” he’ll insist. “ _You_ were the one who moved from across the country.”

She was. Tex remembers fighting it every step of the way, her childhood move from Texas to New York: refusing to pack, holding tight to the oak tree in their yard with all the strength her seven-year-old self could muster while her mother gently pulled her away. She spent the entire journey trying to hide her tears, and when they finally arrived, she locked herself in her room and refused to come out.

Her mother had let her sulk for the entirety of the first day and half of the second before knocking on her door. “Aly, come out. There’s a little girl your age next door, and she wants to play with you.”

“Tell her she’s stupid.”

“Alyson, that’s mean. Her name is Naomi and you should come say hi. She seems like a very nice girl, and I think she wants to be friends.”

Aly did not _want_ to make friends with the very nice girl. The very nice girl was _stupid_ and besides, Ali had plenty of friends back home in Texas, which she was planning to run away to that very night. She wanted nothing to do with the very nice girl. In the end, she had ignored her mother, and refused to leave her room.

Instead, the very nice girl had lobbed pebble after pebble at her bedroom window until Aly had wrenched it open, furious, to see a girl with the same blonde hair as her own readying another pebble. “Hi,” she’d called. “I’m your neighbor. Come be my friend.”

“I don’t want to be your stupid friend!”

“Why not?

“I hate it here!”

“Me too.”

Aly paused, just before slamming her window. “You do?”

“Yeah. It’s dumb.”

Aly had gone down immediately.

The very nice girl had moved to New York a year prior, from North Carolina. She’d made a face when Aly called her Naomi, told her to call her Carolina. “I changed my name when we moved,” she told her seriously. “I won’t answer to anything but Carolina until we move back.”

“You can do that?” Aly had asked, fascinated. “Just change your _name_ like that?”

“Of course you can,” Carolina said boldly. “Everyone calls me Carolina now, Aly.”

“Texas,” Aly had corrected her. “I wanna be Tex. _That_ _’s_ where I’m from.”

It was the first time she’d seen Carolina’s mischievous grin light up her face. They’d spit into their hands and shaken and made a pact, that they would answer to nothing but Carolina and Texas until they were back home, back where they belonged.

* * *

Carolina and Tex. Even their parents had given up eventually, on calling them Naomi and Alyson. They corrected every teacher they had until it had caught on at school as well, until they had become _Carolina-and-Tex_ to every weary teacher they ever had, to every student they were classmates with. “Carolina-and-Tex, stop that at once!” “I want Carolina-and-Tex on my team.” “Carolina-and-Tex pushed me on the playground.”

They were mistaken all the time for sisters, with their similar builds and long, thick blonde hair. Tex’s eyes were brown to Carolina’s striking green, but otherwise, they looked so similar that they were occasionally even asked if they were twins. They said yes, every time—yes they were sisters, yes they were twins—then dissolved into giggles when the asker departed. Tex harbored a fierce, secret jealously of Carolina’s brother her entire life, for being able to call Carolina his sister in both name and in blood.

 _Carolina-and-Tex._ They were inseparable, through Girl Scouts, through volleyball, through gymnastics. They were inseparable through the divorce of Tex’s parents, the death of Carolina’s mother. It had been Carolina who guarded the girl’s locker room door while Tex sobbed and sobbed at the news that her father was moving back to Texas without her; it had been Tex who had gently tipped Carolina’s head back in the bathroom sink and worked the red hair dye into her roots for the first time, her wrists stained red for days after. They’d hidden behind potted plants to keep an eye on each other during dates, shopped together for prom dresses and bathing suits and lingerie—learned, together, how to not fail Algebra, how to put a tampon in, how to smoke a cigar.

They were inseparable.

Until they weren't.


End file.
